Antimicrobial agents are chemical compositions that are used to prevent microbiological contamination and deterioration of products, materials, mediums (such as water process streams) and systems. Antimicrobial agents and compositions are used, for example, as disinfectants or sanitizers in association with hard surface cleaning, food preparation, animal feed, cooling water, hospitality services, hospital and medical uses, pulp and paper manufacturing, cleaning textiles, and water processing. Of the diverse categories of antimicrobial agents and compositions, quaternary ammonium compounds represent one of the largest of the classes of agents in use. At low concentrations, quaternary ammonium type antimicrobial agents are bacteriostatic, fungistatic, algistatic, sporostatic, and tuberculostatic. At medium concentrations they are bactericidal, fungicidal, algicidal, and viricidal against lipophilic viruses. Quaternary ammonium compounds are known to have difficulty in retaining kill efficacy against gram negative microbes, such as E. coli, below about 150 ppm and are also inefficient at reduced temperatures and pH. Therefore, it is desirable to boost the antimicrobial activity of a chemical such as a quaternary ammonium compound. It is desirable to boost the antimicrobial activity of such chemicals for us in various applications.
Accordingly, it is an objective of the claimed invention to develop an enhanced antimicrobial quaternary ammonium compound based composition.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a synergistic combination of a quaternary ammonium compound and anionic surfactant providing increased dynamic surface activity (as measured by a reduction in dynamic surface tension).
It is a further object of the invention to provide a synergistic composition of a quaternary ammonium compound and anionic polymers or chelants to provide such improvements and synergistic surface activity.
It is an object of the invention to provide an activated composition, having enhanced and/or synergistic surface activity, having applications of use including, for example, disinfectant and/or sanitizing surfaces, including high level disinfectants for medical instruments, antimicrobial lubricants, laundry cleaning and sanitizing, antimicrobials having enhanced mildness and reduced irritancy, enhanced combination products, third sink applications, and the like.
A further object of the invention is to provide enhanced antimicrobial activity and/or sanitizing activity with a blend of quaternary ammonium compound and anionic surfactant, including overcoming conventional limitations of quaternary ammonium compounds, including conventional requirements for neutral to alkaline pH for performance efficacy, hard water performance limitations requiring increased concentrations and need for higher concentrations of actives for efficacy.
A further aspect of the invention is to provide a sanitizing composition to improve upon the conventional quaternary ammonium compounds which are not very surface active themselves. In an aspect, the enhanced antimicrobial activity and/or sanitizing activity with a blend of quaternary ammonium compound and anionic surfactant, including enhanced wetting in some applications, unexpectedly provide such activity at pH neutral or above (as opposed to acidic pH conventionally employed, such as for 500 ppm water hardness suspension tests). In a further aspect, and as a further benefit of the invention, the compositions provide enhanced mildness and reduced irritation, along with leaving less residue on substrate surfaces.
A further object of the invention is to provide a blend of quaternary ammonium compound and anionic surfactant capable of inactivating antimicrobial and/or sanitizing efficacy by selection of anionic surfactant for the composition.
It is an object of the invention to provide an inactivated composition of the neutralized quaternary ammonium compound and anionic surfactants, having applications of use including, for example, water treatment, quaternary ammonium compound titration kits, recycling of surfactants, and the like.
Other objects, advantages and features of the present invention will become apparent from the following specification taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.